I've spent almost my entire career as a journalist covering tech in and around Silicon Valley, meeting entrepreneurs, executives and engineers, watching companies rise and fall (or in the case of Apple, rise, fall and rise again) and attending confabs and conferences. Before joining Forbes in February 2012, I had a very brief stint in corporate communications at HP (on purpose) and worked for more than six years on the tech team at Bloomberg News, where I dived into the financial side of tech. Before that, I was Silicon Valley bureau chief for Interactive Week, a contributor to Wired and Upside, and a reporter and news editor for MacWeek. The first computer game I ever played was Zork, my collection of now-vintage tech T-shirts includes a tie-dye BMUG classic and a HyperCard shirt featuring a dog and fire hydrant. When I can work at home, I settle into the black Herman Miller Aeron chair that I picked up when NeXT closed its doors. You can email me at cguglielmo@forbes.com.

Apple, Hoping For An iPad Christmas, May Get Its Wish As Reviewers Tout iPad Air

But according to reviewers who got their hands early on the iPad Air, the fifth-generation of Apple’s full-size tablet which goes on sale tomorrow, it’s also the best tablet on the market — if you’re willing to pony up the dollars for it.

“It’s still very much the premium-priced choice, just as it’s always been,” says Tim Stevens of CNET. “However, the market continues to shift, offering more and increasingly sophisticated alternatives at far cheaper prices, tablets like the Kindle Fire HDX and Google Nexus 10. That, plus strong competition from within Apple’s own ranks with the upcoming iPad Mini with Retina display, means the iPad Air has to be better than ever. Thankfully, it is.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook, speaking to analysts this week after announcing fourth-quarter earnings, said the company thinks it’s going to be an “iPad Christmas.” That’s good news, since iPad sales — at about 17 percent of revenue — needed a lift after customers held off buying from Apple in recent quarters while they waited for rumored new models, and as competitors lured some away with appealing rival tablets. Apple delivered on those rumors last month, unveiling the 1-pound, 9.7-inch iPad Air and the second generation of its 7.9-inch iPad mini with a sharper, high-resolution Retina display.

The Air, priced starting at $499 for a WiFi model with 16-gigbaytes of memory, goes on sale tomorrow in more than 40 countries. The Retina-fronted Mini, priced starting at $399, won’t be available until later in November.

Initial sales of both models should help boost Apple’s revenue this holiday season, typically its biggest quarter for sales. It’s also got new versions of its biggest moneymaker — the iPhone — to offer, with Cook saying it plans to offer the iPhone 5s and 5c in at least 100 countries by year’s end.

To appeal to buyers put off by the iPad’s premium price tags, Apple is also selling the second-generation of its large-screen iPad, the iPad 2, at a starting price of $299. It’s also going to keep offering the first-generation of the iPad mini, of $299; it offers more advanced tech than its older large-screen sibling and has set off debates about Apple’s pricing strategy.

The updated Air and mini come to market as consumer demand for tablets continues to surge. Tablet shipments rose 37 percent in the third quarter, to 47.6 million units, market research firm IDC said yesterday. And while Apple remained No. 1 with a 30 percent market share, iPad shipments dropped as customers held off buying — a situation that IDC expects to change this quarter, thanks to the new Air and mini. Second place Samsung saw its share grow to 20 percent from 12 percent after it’s shipments more than doubled. IDC credits Samsung with boosting its sales in part by bundling its tables with other successful Samsung products, including as smartphones and televisions.

“With two 7.9-inch models starting at $299 and $399, and two 9.7-inch models starting at $399 and $499, Apple is taking steps to appeal to multiple segments,” Jitesh Ubrani, an IDC analyst, said in a statement. “While some undoubtedly hoped for more aggressive pricing from Apple, the current prices clearly reflect Apple’s ongoing strategy to maintain its premium status. It’s worth noting that Apple wasn’t the only one to increase the price of its small-sized tablet during this product cycle: Both Google and Amazon increased the price of their newest 7-inch tablets from $199 to $229 to cover the higher costs associated with high resolution screens and better processors.”

Cook said this week that Apple has sold 170 million iPads since the tablet was introduced in 2010. Buyers of earlier models are trading them in so they can trade up to the newer versions, according to resale site Gazelle.com, which says Pad mini and iPad 2 trades have been robust in October. iPad owners are getting, on average, about $80 for their original iPad, $215 for the iPad 2, $255 for the iPad 3 and $370 for the fourth-generation iPad. The first-generation iPad mini is fetching about $270, according to Gazelle.com pricing data as of today.

“These latest iPads do have some downsides. They are pricier than many competitors. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 can be bought starting at $360. Dell has just introduced a new small tablet, the Venue 7, for $150. And iPads can get even more costly once you start adding features, because Apple charges hefty prices for extras like cellular connectivity and more storage,” says Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. Even so, he adds, “If you can afford it, the new iPad Air is the tablet I recommend, hands down.”

In addition to its product design, the iPad has a big advantage over rivals in the number of apps — about 475,000 — designed specifically for the device, reviewers note.

“No longer alone in the marketplace, no longer the only right choice, no breakthrough new features. But it’s smaller, lighter, and faster than ever, with a much bigger catalog of apps—and much better ones—than the competition,” writes David Pogue, formerly of the New York Times and now with Yahoo. “ The closest competitor to the iPad Air is probably Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1. It has a pen and much better stereo speakers. But like all Android tablets, it’s deeply app-impaired. Android tablets offer nothing like the quantity or quality of those available for the iPad (425,000 iPad-specific apps, plus 700,000 or so phone apps). In phones, you could argue for either Android or iPhone. But in tablets, no; iPad still takes it.”

Reviews Round Up

Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal. “One reason for the phenomenal success of the iPad has been Apple’s ability to pack speed and versatility into a thin, light body with long battery life. It doesn’t do everything a laptop does, but for many common scenarios, it has replaced the laptop as its owners’ go-to device…Now, Apple is raising the bar. On Friday, it plans to start selling its fifth-generation full-size model, called the iPad Air, and this one significantly extends the iPad’s advantages, at the same $499 base price of its predecessor. In a feat of design and engineering, Apple has slashed the iPad’s weight by 28 percent, made it 20 percent thinner and 9 percent narrower, while increasing its speed and retaining the brilliant, 9.7-inch Retina display….This new iPad isn’t a radical rethinking of what a tablet can be, but it’s a major improvement on a successful product. It is the best tablet I’ve ever reviewed….These latest iPads do have some downsides. They are pricier than many competitors. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 can be bought starting at $360. Dell has just introduced a new small tablet, the Venue 7, for $150. And iPads can get even more costly once you start adding features, because Apple charges hefty prices for extras like cellular connectivity and more storage… If you can afford it, the new iPad Air is the tablet I recommend, hands down.”

Ed Baig, USA Today. “The Earth isn’t about to shake with the arrival of Apple’s thin new iPad Air that goes on sale Friday. IPad Air breaks no major ground. You use it like you always have with an iPad: around the house, in the office, on the bus, or up at 40,000 feet. We’re talking about a mature fifth generation tablet after all. Biggest news: a name change. As it happens, though, this latest full-size Apple tablet is the most tempting iPad yet, better than its already best of breed predecessors, superior still to each and every rival big screen slate that I’ve tested. Apple dominates the tablet apps ecosystem. Its tablet remains the easiest to use. But rivals are closing the gap with clever features that I wish Apple would adopt. And even for Apple aficionados, the iPad Air isn’t a must-do upgrade…. Your existing iPad can pretty much do everything that the iPad Air can do. That said, if you’re new to iPad or are in the market to buy a tablet anyway, I expect you’ll be more than thrilled with an Air.”

David Pogue, Yahoo. “Somehow, Apple was able to put the iPad [Air] on such a radical diet without sacrificing any of its features. The battery is smaller, but Apple says it still gets least ten hours on a charge. The screen is still incredibly sharp—264 tiny pixels per inch. The back is still made of classy-looking aluminum (silver on the white iPad, metallic gray on the black one), not plastic like most rival tablets. There are useful changes inside, too. The iPad Air is powered by the same new chip (called the A7) that makes the iPhone 5s so fast. And it’s a 64-bit chip, which, according to Apple, means smoother animation in 3-D games. All told, Apple says that the new iPad is up to twice as fast as the last one, but the key words are “up to”; in practice, the speedup is slight. Besides, that’s always been a weird statistic; who complained about the speed of the previous iPad? Still, speed is like money, friends, or Nutella: more is always welcome… In many ways, the Mini is a more attractive prospect. At only three-quarters of a pound (and 5.3 by 7.8 inches), it’s a much more compact companion; it’s like owning a cocker spaniel instead of a Saint Bernard.”

Anand Lal Shimpi, AnandTech. “Trying to summarize what makes the iPad Air special quickly turns into a list of the things Apple likes to have with any evolution of an existing product: it’s smaller, lighter and faster with absolutely no tradeoffs made in the process. The iPad Air feels like a true successor to the iPad 2…I’ve been obsessed with devices that convey the sort of lightweight yet high quality computing slate feel that I always imagined tablets could be. The list of devices that achieves that goal in my mind is pretty limited. The iPad mini did it, as did the 2013 Nexus 7. The iPad Air joins those two in a major way. In fact it’s the first tablet of this size to really feel right. The first iPad looked great but needed improvement on so many vectors. The second gave us a size and weight reduction but lost some of the luxury feel in the process. We know the story of numbers 3 and 4 which amounted to a set of tradeoffs in order to accommodate a Retina Display, but with the iPad Air Apple hits a balance of features, design and ergonomics that I don’t think we’ve ever seen in the iPad.”

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“The Retina-fronted Mini, priced starting at $529, won’t be available until later in November.” Last I checked the retina mini starts at $399. Why is it so hard to get these facts right? It’s on Apple’s website.

It is not the best tablet on the market! May be the best APPLE tablet on the market but that’s it. ipad market share has slipped to less than 30% lowest since 2010. There are tablets out there with better screens and more features, S-Pen support, Micro Sd card slots and similar or better pricing! Same applies to phones, There are many options out there with better features than iphone.